page_title: Battle of al-Harra
section_title: Location
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of al-Harra / Location
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of basalt desert pavement in the Black Desert, eastern Jordan.
context_page_description: The Battle of al-Harra was fought between the Syrian army of the Umayyad caliph Yazid I led by Muslim ibn Uqba and the local defenders of Medina, namely the Ansar and Muhajirun factions, who had rebelled against the caliph. The battle took place at the lava field of Harrat Waqim in the northeastern outskirts of Medina on 26 August 683.
  The elite factions of Medina disapproved of the hereditary succession of Yazid, unprecedented in Islamic history until that point, resented the caliph's impious lifestyle, and chafed under Umayyad economic policies. After declaring their rebellion, they besieged the Umayyad clan resident in Medina and dug a defensive trench around the city. The expeditionary force sent by Yazid together with the local Umayyads, who had since been released from the siege, encamped at Harrat Waqim where they were confronted by the rebels. Despite an initial advantage, the Medinese were routed as a result of the defection of one of their factions, which enabled Umayyad horsemen led by Marwan ibn al-Hakam to attack them from the rear.
  Afterward, the army pillaged Medina for three days, though accounts of the plunder vary considerably.
context_section_description: The location of the battle was in a lava field known as Harrat Waqim, which straddles the eastern outskirts of Medina in the Hejaz (western Arabia). It was named after the Waqim fortress of the Banu Qurayza tribe that had been resident in the area during the pre-Islamic period and was alternatively known as Harrat Bani Qurayza or Harrat Zuhra. It formed part of the vast geological system of ḥarras (basaltic deserts) which spanned the region east of the Hauran in Syria southward to Medina's environs. As a result of the fame of the battle, Harrat Waqim was thenceforth referred to in Muslim sources as "the Harra".
caption: Basaltic stony ground of the eastern desert of modern Jordan, characteristic of the wider region of ḥarras that extend from the Hauran into western Arabia
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